Lew to Boehner: Raise debt ceiling

The Obama administration wants Congress to raise the debt limit in the next 16 days.

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew sent a letter to Speaker John Boehner on Wednesday, saying the “best course of action would be for Congress to “raise the nation’s debt limit “before February 7 to ensure orderly financing of the government.” At the latest, Lew writes, Congress must lift the cap by the end of February.

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“When I previously wrote to you in December, I estimated that Treasury would exhaust extraordinary measures in late February or early March,” Lew wrote to Boehner. “Based on our best and most recent information, we believe that Treasury is more likely to exhaust those measures in late February. While this forecast is subject to inherent variability, we do not foresee any reasonable scenario in which the extraordinary measures would last for an extended period of time.”

There’s not a ton of time. The House is out of session this week and in session for only two-and-a-half days next week. As of right now, there doesn’t appear to be a plan to lift the debt limit. Asked last week whether Congress would have to deal with the debt limit by late February, Boehner demurred.

“All I know is we should not default on our debt, we shouldn’t even get close to it,” Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said during a Capitol Hill news conference. “And I would hope that the House and the Senate would act quickly on a bill to increase the debt limit. What that vehicle is and how it’s going to be unveiled, we’ll find out soon enough.”

The debt limit is not the fiscal standoff it used to be. When Republicans first took the House, they demanded deep cuts to spending as a price for increasing the national borrowing limit. Last time they lifted the cap, they did it without concessions from Democrats and President Barack Obama.

Michael Steel, a spokesman for Boehner, hinted in an email that Republicans will again demand concessions from Democrats to raise the borrowing limit.

“The speaker has said that we should not default on our debt, or even get close to it, but a ‘clean’ debt limit increase simply won’t pass in the House,” Steel said. “We hope and expect the White House will work with us on a timely, fiscally responsible solution.”

Republicans will have time to discuss how they plan to lift the limit when they have their annual legislative retreat in Cambridge, Md., next week.